RESILIENCE AND THE HUMANITIES

Explores the concept of resilience by proposing that it is a contested idea susceptible to criticism and not a predetermined notion whose consequences are fixed Resilience is all around us It is a buzzword in domains that range from engineering through moral psychology coaching and self help manuals to military strategy The word has varied meaning across these fields but all definitions share the idea that it accounts for the protection and maintenance of different environments through the adaptation of its individuals to the changes or disruptions these might undergo The apparently obvious meaning of resilience and its normative consequences are the result of a series of intellectual social and epistemic processes Resilience and the Humanities Critique and Testing proposes that regardless of its ubiquity resilience is a concept that cannot be accepted without interrogating and testing its value thereby contesting and critiquing it This edited volume explores the possibilities and shortcomings of the concept through philosophy literature history and film studies in fifteen chapters that seek to understand the promises and limitations of resilience through different case studies The authors discuss the way the concept fills a discourse with ide